Anyone ever do any Silkscreening???

vbtalent

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I was just curious if anyone had ever tried to rescreen a pin that they owned?

Any how to's or guides available?

VB,
 
I've created a couple of screens for shirts. It wasn't that difficult.

A friend of mine made screens for text on an old EM she had and it turned out great. Very time consuming but it can be done. I just wouldn't want to try it on anything too complicated or with too many colors.
 
Would you use just regular touch up paint for silkscreening or is it special paint?

Weren't all pins originally silkscreened - it seems logical to be able to re-screen them if it weren't too difficult..
 
Would you use just regular touch up paint for silkscreening or is it special paint?

Weren't all pins originally silkscreened - it seems logical to be able to re-screen them if it weren't too difficult..

Yes all playfields are silkscreened. That's the thing, its not a simple task, you need to have a lot of experience with screen printing. Simple screens you could do yourself but I guarantee you will need to engage a screen printer to make you a screen it is is the least bit complicated.

I can tell you from experience that it is hard to get a screen made even after having the art vectored and ready to go. I am at that point with one of my pinball projects; I'm having a heck of a time finding a screener that will make a single color screen for me. Last company that was supposed to help me out took a year to create a test screen and ultimately never came through.
 
Would you use just regular touch up paint for silkscreening or is it special paint?

Weren't all pins originally silkscreened - it seems logical to be able to re-screen them if it weren't too difficult..

It's not paint, its actually ink. It is a special type of ink that needs to be used and would immediately need to be topcoated with some type of clearcoat.
 
Great info. metahugh.

So the screening process then appears to be the hardest part of the whole project once the artwork is completed.

Are you familiar with the process of making screens and what complexities arise from doing some complicated artwork with them?

It seems like the screening is the "black magic" in the whole restoration process. I'd be interested in learning about how its done and how they did them originally and how they are being done on some of the reproductions being done.

VB,
 
Great info. metahugh.

So the screening process then appears to be the hardest part of the whole project once the artwork is completed.

Are you familiar with the process of making screens and what complexities arise from doing some complicated artwork with them?

It seems like the screening is the "black magic" in the whole restoration process. I'd be interested in learning about how its done and how they did them originally and how they are being done on some of the reproductions being done.

VB,

Do some google searches and you will find more info than we can ever give you. When I did my silk screening a couple of years ago there was no end of good info out there.

Making basic screens is not that difficult. You coat the silk with a paste that dries hard. Then you take a transparency that has the areas you want to be able to press ink through in black and place it on the screen. Then it's exposed to light and you rinse it with water to remove the areas that you will press the ink through. There's your screen.

Then you place it on the piece and press ink through the screen with a squeegee. Honestly it's really not that difficult to do. The problem comes in getting fine detail or doing a bunch of colors on top of each other. Then you have to deal with registration of the screens. That will require some good quality equipment. That equipment is not cheap in a case where you're only doing one or a small number of jobs.

I would say it's time consuming more so than difficult. It also requires a bunch of materials that are not necessarily cheap. I've made a few shirts and I would be confident that I could do a good job on something with one color down to maybe 1mm detail but anything finer or more detail is going to be harder. Still not impossible but you reach the point where all the time, effort and money may not be worth it for screening one piece.

Like I said a friend of mine did text on a playfield (scores over inserts, etc...) and it turned out really well. I also assume it took forever.

I know there are a couple of people on this forum who do reproduction art work for arcade games. Maybe one of them will chime in. I'm no expert. Just sharing my experience.
 
A friend of mine has a screen like what I have been trying to get made. Like Lindsey said the process of actually applying the ink through the screen to whatever substrate you are screening to is actually pretty easy. Pour in some ink, push it around with a squeegee and remove the screen. Now getting a screen made... that's another story :) :)
 
It's not paint, its actually ink. It is a special type of ink that needs to be used and would immediately need to be topcoated with some type of clearcoat.

Isn't that splitting hairs? I mean there are tons of things that are screen printed and don't need a coating, because the "ink" is basically a paint. Some of the inks are more like a plastic than an ink.

On this topic of reprinting a playfield though... There is a guy who was experimenting with reprinting playfields on a one-off basis using a large flat inkjet printer. The results weren't perfect but were pretty nice and showed potential, I thought. Especially as a way to repair a totally trashed playfield.

Wade
 
Isn't that splitting hairs? I mean there are tons of things that are screen printed and don't need a coating, because the "ink" is basically a paint. Some of the inks are more like a plastic than an ink.

On this topic of reprinting a playfield though... There is a guy who was experimenting with reprinting playfields on a one-off basis using a large flat inkjet printer. The results weren't perfect but were pretty nice and showed potential, I thought. Especially as a way to repair a totally trashed playfield.

Wade

I don't think so. Paint is thicker than ink and if you went out and tried to use paint through a silkscreen you will notice it won't go through. I've seen the ink used in person and it has a watery consistency, even more so than oil based paint (With latex being the thickest).
 
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I can tell you from experience that it is hard to get a screen made even after having the art vectored and ready to go. I am at that point with one of my pinball projects; I'm having a heck of a time finding a screener that will make a single color screen for me. Last company that was supposed to help me out took a year to create a test screen and ultimately never came through.
Have you considered having it printed by a non-silkscreen printer?

http://www.edcheung.com/album/album07/Pinball/ss_pf.htm
 
Screening ink is actually thicker than oil based paint for spraying. There is an enamel ink that dries very very hard. Silk screens come in many different thread mesh count. Get the mesh too large and your straight lines will look jagged. Each color to be screened has it's own artwork burned onto a screen. Each screen is stretched in it's own frame. The screen is held about an 1/8" about the surface to be printed. The ink is squeegeed through the screen with enough pressure to make the screen touch the print surface. Release the pressure after a single swipe and don't let the screen retouch the printed surface again or you get smudges. Get the ink thinned and test run before printing your project. Don't let the ink dry in the screen or you are f'd. It's actually fairly easy once you get the hang of it.

Here in Portland there are several screen printing suppliers but few burners. Call a supplier in your area and ask who does screen burning. There used to be a guy around here who burned screens up to 4 foot by 4 foot just can't remember his company name. I have paid up to 60 bucks for a screen 16" x 20". Most tee shirt printers burn their own screens and might sub out there service.
 
Screening ink is actually thicker than oil based paint for spraying.

Interesting, thanks for the info! It always seemed thinner to me. Thanks for the recommendations about getting the screen made. I remember when I first started looking into getting one made and this one printer wanted $1500 to burn me a screen!
 
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